


Whirlpool

by ultraviolence



Series: in the arms of the ocean (mermaidverse) [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Love Confessions, M/M, Prompt Fill, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 14:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: Tarkin's sick and Orson shifts to take care of him, albeit grudgingly. There are a lot of grumpiness involved, rating is for swearing and them bickering like an old married couple. Obligatory sickfic. Inspired by Ripple, the fic who started everything. Prompt fill, AU.





	Whirlpool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wilhuffs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilhuffs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ripple](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838389) by [ArgentGale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentGale/pseuds/ArgentGale). 



> For _Wilhuffs_ at Twitter, who continually feed me this idea of soft Tarkrennic (and ArgentGale also, I'M LOOKING AT YOU) and is The Worst. jk, you're the best. I hope you--and everyone who reads this--enjoys this. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“So what is actually wrong with you?”

Orson demanded, his typical style. Tarkin thinks that he doesn’t actually know any other way. What a spoiled little prince, Tarkin thought, and coughed. Damn this illness and damn it all to hell. It’s been a while since they meet, and he forced himself to make the trip. He was coughing all the while--the walk to the cavern is horrible, filled with cold wind that doesn’t make his stuffy nose condition any better--and when he arrived there Orson was there, already waiting, on his favourite rock, both of his hands resting on top of it, while his bottom half was mostly submerged in the seawater. It was _their_ cavern, the mother of the cave of where Orson experienced his first transformation, and it was an ideal place to meet: secluded, rocky, and, most importantly, Orson deemed it worthy for...whatever reason. Tarkin still couldn’t understand him sometimes. He wasn’t really looked pleased when he saw Tarkin making his way towards where he was perched on the rock, narrowing his eyes and splashing his great half-crescent tail in the water. Noticing that Tarkin was quiet and keeping his distance from the water, he carries on with his ranting.

“You didn’t come for around a week or so, disappearing all of a sudden, and you didn’t go fishing, either. I know. I’ve been patrolling these waters so often now that one of your ilk could have caught me. You know,” he added, imperiously, raising his head, “it’s generally considered rude to keep anyone waiting. Didn’t you teach me that, old man? Or does that not apply to my kind?”

Tarkin narrowed his eyes back at him. “You complained so much, I don’t know why I bother to keep _you_ around, Krennic,” Tarkin said, watching as the other’s expression shift and hardened, his eyes like the vortex of a deadly whirlpool, “I’ve had...other things to do,” he coughed again, averting his gaze, “not just you. You know.”

He doesn’t see the look on the other’s face, but he heard a splash and he thought for a moment that Krennic has left out of spite--’stormed out’ doesn’t sound quite right, more like _stormed into the water_ \--and then he thought that Krennic is going to curse him or something, one of the other (the things that his kind was famous for, at least in the legends) and Tarkin nearly rolled his eyes, but then he discovered that the idiot haughty merman was swimming _towards_ him, as near to the shore as he could manage.

“Come closer, Wil,” Orson said, his tone just a little bit commanding, popping from the water. Tarkin gave him the narrowed eyes expression once more, but Orson wasn’t yielding, and in the end, he suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and carefully walked closer, but not after he took off his shoes and rolled up his breeches some. The water was cold, and it wasn’t helping at all, but he gritted his teeth and trooped on, determined not to show any weakness in front of Orson.

“What? You going to drown me or something, Orson?”

A soft hiss escaped from Orson’s lips, but he moved closer, the sleek grey upperside of his tail partially visible in the shallow water now, the white underside flashing like something dangerous, and, to Tarkin’s surprise, he pulled his hand, not unkindly, trying to get him to squat or kneel, and Tarkin obeyed, feeling the seawater seeped into his breeches, and he scowled, but otherwise didn’t put up a fight.

“If I want to do that, Wil, I’ve already done so, a long time ago,” Krennic said, and Tarkin felt his damp hands on the sides of his face, pulling him closer for a kiss, but then Tarkin ruined the moment by coughing, and Orson stopped dead in his tracks. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked again, and inched closer, his tail splashing a little in the water. “Are you...sick?”

“No,” Tarkin said, trying to pull away, but Krennic won’t let him. “I’m as healthy as a whale, Krennic. You’re just seeing things. I think it’s the water. It’s cold, you know. This is still February. Spring is a long way away.”

Orson finally lets his face go, but he was looking at him curiously, his blue eyes shining with the particular curiosity that by now Tarkin has known so well. Once more to his surprise, Orson wrapped his arms around him, gently, and pretty much delivered him to the shore, or as close as he could manage. Tarkin could smell the sea on him, a familiar smell, along with something else, something he could never quite pinpoint, and he simply filed it as _Orson_ in his head. He liked it, and he felt Orson’s fingers lingering in his hair, mussing it up while threading his fingers in it at the same time, caressing it, before he pushed Tarkin to the shore.

“You’re sick,” he stated, looking at Tarkin in a strange way that Tarkin couldn’t quite puzzle out. “You live alone, don’t you?” Orson asked, tilting his head curiously. Tarkin coughed for the umpteenth time, shivering from the water and the cold.

“No, I’m not-” he wheezed, hating his stuffy nose very very much at the time being and himself for being weak in front of Orson, “not at all. Sick, I mean. And yes, I live alone. My siblings are all out somewhere in the country. You know that.”

“You need someone to take care of you,” Orson said, looking very much like he wanted to inch closer, but he couldn’t. That was as far as he could go, in the shallows. Tarkin glared at him, naturally, and opened his mouth to argue, but Orson cuts him off imperiously.

“Don’t argue with me, Wil,” he said, glaring back at him. “You do need someone to take care of you,” he sighed, quite dramatically, “this is why landlubbers are weak. But yes, _I_ will take care of you since nobody else could.”

Tarkin laughed, something that sounded more like a bark, and Orson looked surprised. “How are you going to do that? Do you have magic for that, Orson? Or what?”

Now Orson clearly looked quite fairly mad, and he glared daggers at Tarkin in return. “No,” he said, with great and infinite patience according to Orson’s standards, “I am going to visit you again in your house. Go home, Wil. I’ll be there soon.”

“And you- you’d undertake the transformation alone?” Tarkin blurted out. “Are you serious, Orson?”

“I am,” the merman declared, already retreating back towards deeper waters. “I’ll be there in a bit. Go home and wait for me.”

* * *

Tarkin felt ridiculous for not rejecting Krennic’s offer, no, _demand_. Damn him and all his stupid ideas, it was probably all the seawater in his brain. At the same time, he wished he had removed the secret stash of clothes and first aid kit that they left together in the cave, for times like this, so he couldn't walk to the village. The cave was even more secluded than the cavern its mother, so neither of them had to worry that anyone would find the chest containing the clothes and the first aid kit (in case Orson injured himself in any way), which would be exchanged with the ceremonial knife once Orson completed the transformation. The pearl necklace Orson would tuck under his tunic’s collar and keep with him in his person at all times.

He was pacing back and forth in the sitting room near the front door, waiting for the other man to show up any second from now. When he finally got tired of pacing, he sat down in one of the empty armchairs, coughing and wanting nothing more but to get into bed.

As if reading his mind, miraculously, at that moment, he heard a knock, and Tarkin quickly opened the door. It was indeed Krennic, looking very much human and very much cold. He was wearing the clothes that Tarkin had put inside the secret chest, and he had both hands stuffed inside his coat.

“This cold is very unbearable,” he already started complaining, quickly made his way inside and let Tarkin closed the door behind him, and locked it. “And the pain is getting _worse_. I swear to the sea, Wil, it was like being cleaved from the inside out, and I don’t know why I agreed to this,” he grumped, casting his gaze around the room before finally letting it settle on Tarkin, and his eyes widened for a moment. “Oh. _Oh_. You looked terrible, old man. You should be in bed, not walking around your sitting room pretending to be healthy.”

Tarkin scowled greatly at him. At moments like this, he really felt like spearing Orson through with a harpoon. “ _I_ was waiting for you, you dumb idiot,” he retorted, and coughed several times. “Who will open the bloody door for you? Don’t be a little shit, Orson, you don’t have a key.”

“Then you should give me one.”

Tarkin laughed, trying to suppress yet another cough and failing. The cold breeze that wafted in from when he opened the door to Orson was making everything much, much worse. Orson was right: he needed to be in bed, and he wanted to, but he’s not going to go down without a fight. “It will _rust_ , you slimy asshole. It’s not like you have pockets on your tail.”

“I mean you could put it in the chest,” Orson said, not as sharp as Tarkin thought he would. “Why are we arguing about this?” he said, pacing for a bit, then glared daggers at Tarkin. “Get in bed. I’ll help you. Then I’ll make you something.”

Tarkin wanted to hiss at the mere implication that he needed anyone’s help, much less Orson, but he snorted instead at what he said. “You’re still not used to fire. You’ll burn the entire house down.”

Orson grabbed his arm, and Tarkin _did_ hiss at him now, like a cornered animal. “Just tell me how. Now I’m getting you to bed, and you’re not going to refuse. _Now_ , Wil.”

Tarkin wanted to argue, but all the arguments and grumpiness actually made him feel even worse, and he could only cough and let Orson drag him to his own bed, took off some of his extra layers, and pulled the blankets up, puffing the pillow and piling them up before he let Tarkin rest his head on it. “That enough?” Orson said, looking at him for approval. “There should be a manual on how to take care of your human.”

Tarkin tried to laugh, but again, it came out as a cough, and he felt both miserable and disgusted with himself. It was beyond himself, how he could have caught a cold. Usually, he had the constitution of an ox, and both his upbringing and profession make sure of that. “ _Your_ human, Orson?”

“Yes,” Orson said, checking everything once more before looking satisfied, at not only his work, but also at himself, and most of all at the fact that he managed to force Wilhuff Tarkin to rest. “You’re _my_ human, Wil. I thought you already know that. Now sit tight, I’m going to make you one of those soup things you mentioned.”

“Just don’t burn the house down,” Tarkin told him, leaning back on his pillow, resigned. There is nothing more he can do now.

“I won’t,” Krennic said, grinning. “I promise.”

Tarkin didn’t trust that at all.

* * *

It felt like forever since Orson left him resting in the bed, and the other man has only shown up twice after he initially left for the kitchen, once to check up on him, and the other to make sure that Tarkin had plenty of handkerchiefs and tissues on his disposal. Tarkin at least had to commend him on that, but he still dreaded Orson’s cooking. At worst, he’d die of food poisoning and lord knows what else, and at best...well, he’d have a bad, bad stomachache.

When Orson was back, at last, he was carrying a tray with a bowl of soup on it and a cup of hot tea, and for the first time that day (well, not actually the first time, but Tarkin wanted to believe as much) Tarkin felt grateful that the other man went through all the trouble to take care of him.

But the edibility of the soup...Tarkin eyed it suspiciously after Orson helped propped him up, putting the tray on his lap. At least it looked edible. At least it didn’t look like Orson was trying to poison him with his black magic or whatever.

“What’s this?” Tarkin asked him, trying to keep his tone neutral but some of his suspiciousness bleeds into it. Orson laughed.

“It’s chicken soup from a recipe I found in the kitchen. You’ve cooked for me plenty of times, remember? Now it’s my turn, and,” he added, tying Tarkin’s stomach into a knot after what he said first has managed to assuage his anxiety somewhat, “I added a little extra something into it. You’ll feel better in no time real quick. Now stop complaining and eat up.”

“If you try to poison me in any way, Orson,” Tarkin said, picking up the soup spoon grudgingly, “I’ll make you pay for it.”

Orson laughed again, sitting at the end of the bed. Tarkin liked that he looked pretty comfortable now in his house, wearing the clothes that Tarkin picked for him. He quickly averted his gaze and dipped his spoon warily. “Go on, Wil,” Orson continued. “I promise you, I’m not going to harm you.”

“I know,” Tarkin sighed, took an equally careful sip of the soup, grateful that at least it did smell like chicken soup. “You loved me too much to ever do that, you silly merman.”

“How did it taste?” Orson asked, obviously anxious about it. Tarkin let a moment of silence passed between them, to be dramatic more than anything because the soup tasted strangely good. No, it tasted _magnificent_ , much like the man who made it--and full of surprises besides--though he’d never tell Orson that to his face.

“Heavenly,” he said, smiling thinly. “I don’t know what you put in here, but it’s wonderful. Better than anything I could make by myself, truthfully.”

“Well isn’t that the first,” Orson remarked, tilted his head, “aren’t you going to ask what’s in there?”

“No,” Tarkin answered, simply. “Better if I don’t know. It’s probably one of your magic thing, anyway.”

“That’s right,” Orson said, grinning. “Wil, the downside to this is that I really want to kiss you right now, but you looked disgusting.”

Tarkin gave him a mock-scowl. He knows he probably looked sick as all hell, but he wasn’t mad at Orson for pulling his leg. “More reason why this ‘you’ll get better soon’ thing you’ve told me better work as soon as possible. Or you’re going to die if you couldn’t kiss me at all, aren’t you?”

Tarkin was expected some evasive answer from Orson, after all, neither of them were very mushy with each other, although he kept thinking of Orson as a sentimental fool, privately and affectionately, but to his surprise, again, Orson looked at him in the eye. “I love you, Wil,” he said, surprisingly, and Tarkin could barely contain his surprise. “And yes, you’re damn right. You better get well soon,” he smirked, rising from his seat. “I’m gonna leave you to it now. When you’re done, shout.”

Tarkin only nodded, and Orson lingered for a moment. Tarkin knows what kind of response he was expecting, but he remained silent, spooning his soup and sipping his tea, and he could feel Orson’s disappointment. “I love you too, Orson,” he finally said, quietly, when the other man was already standing in the doorway. “But you know that.”

“I know,” Orson said, shortly, his smile like the sun, and left.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have any comments/suggestions/prompt ideas, please do let me know. I'm still going to try to finish my old fics and my Galennic novel project, but since I'm chaotic evil, if you have a prompt (for this universe and otherwise) that you wanted to see, shoot. I'm most likely game for it.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading again and hope y'all have a nice day <3


End file.
